


His Name

by sinchester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Original Character Death(s), Physical Abuse, SAM X DEAN - Freeform, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:44:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5781076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinchester/pseuds/sinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has been 'mute' his whole life - he cannot speak. Dean has always taken extra good care of him, as his older brother. Sam learns there are some things he can say, if he practises hard enough. </p><p>A/N: for Geny and Khris. Sorry it turned out... not as good as you'd hoped, probably. Also, feel free to shoot me down because this is cheesy as hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Name

1990

"Not much of a talker, is he?"

"Nope. Never has been."

"Dean- is that your name? Dean? Dean... he's not like the other kids here."

"No, I know."

"No, not like that, I mean- he's a bright one, he is. He'll be even better when he wants to talk to people. Does he ever talk to you about school?"

"... No, not really. Well, thanks, Miss, but we gotta go now." Dean tugged at Sam's forearm, and Sam tore his eyes off the teacher who had been praising him. He turned back to her and waved meekly as Dean practically dragged him off.

"Hey, we gotta get home. Dad says we can't be late, he's got someone to meet and we gotta be there" Dean always puffed his chest out slightly or smiled a little when he talked about their father depending on him for something, like he constantly needed validation that he was a part of John's life. Sam looked up at Dean questioningly, picking up speed a little in response to Dean's urgency.

"Don't give me that look, Sammy. Like hell do I know who it is! We're just gonna see, I guess." the older brother shook his head and turned back to face the road ahead, his body almost tilting forward diagonally in his hurry.

-

When the two boys arrived home, Dean jolted suddenly at the door, making Sam jump. Dean placed a finger over his lips in a 'be quiet' gesture. As carefully as he could, he pressed his ear to the door and squinted as if it would aid him in hearing what was going on through it.

"... So, he's still in elementary school?" the voice definitely wasn't their dad's. It was the voice of a woman, all prim and formal and... well, it certainly wasn't one of a hunter, Dean could tell.

"He's 7, yeah."

"Did you... did you never teach him? Expect him to learn by himself?"

"Oh, we tried. Me and his brother Dean, we-"

"His brother? He has a brother?"

"Yeah, his brother's 11. Takes care of him. If there's anyone he's gonna start talking to, it's his brother Dean" their father mused.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Sammy, Dad's talking about... about you talkin'. With some lady. You wanna... you wanna pretend my teacher gave me a detention so I couldn't bring you home?" Sam shrugged, but he looked a little frightened, all the same.

Dean raised his voice closer to normal level sub-consciously. "Okay, so we'll-"

"Dean?" their father called out. "'That you?"

"Crap." he mumbled. "Just... just don't get too scared, okay? She ain't gonna hurt you."

Wincing slightly, Dean creaked the door open, leading Sam in behind him. On a reflex, Dean moved to bolt and lock the door, but noticed the woman frowning at his actions from his peripheral vision. Slowly, he took his hands off the cool metal of the lock and stood by his brother.

"Sam and Dean, this is Katherine. Katherine, this is Sam and Dean" John waved his hand in the general direction of the woman sitting beside him. "Katherine's gonna... she's gonna ask Sam some questions about him, ya know, 'cause he ain't a big talker. Try and find out why, maybe. Dean, you sit with 'm, make sure he's understood." he rose from his seat. "Now, I'm gonna go get us dinner while she talks to ya."

Sam fumbled for Dean's hand and Dean took it, squeezing it for a second before relaxing his grip, but not letting go of it. "It's gonna be okay, Sammy. You just let me handle it."

"So, Dean - I gather you tried to teach Sam to speak. What about that... didn't work, or didn't stick with him?" Katherine asked once the three of them were seated at the table.

Dean stared stubbornly at Katherine for am moment, as if he was making it clear that this was not something he wanted to be doing. "Yeah, me and Dad did. Mostly me, though. Dad... he's not around a lot."

"And what of your mother?"

"She... she's not around either." Dean swallowed.

"Yes, your father let me know she had passed, but I wasn't sure when. Did she try and help Sam?" the woman guided.

"Sam was 6 months old." Dean clenched his jaw.

"Oh, I see. You and your father are aware that Sam should have started learning to talk approximately five years ago, yes...?"

"Yeah. He can understand everything, and he reads and writes. Sometimes he... mouths stuff, I guess. He just don't feel like sayin' nothin'."

Katherine wrote something down in a pristine white notebook, and Dean would've remarked to Sam how cliché this all was, how Hollywood-put-on-Zoloft it seemed, but he couldn't say that now.

"You say your father isn't around a lot... his work requires a lot of travelling, too, I presume, since we're sitting in a motel at this moment."

"Yeah."

"So, it's just the two of you most of the time?"

"Yeah."

"And Sam... Sam has no memory of his mother?" Katherine's gaze was fixed intently on Dean.

"Why don't you ask him? He don't talk, but he ain't dumb" Dean snapped irritably. 

"... Exactly. So, you have no memory of your mother, Sam?" 

Sam merely looked at the psychiatrist. His countenance portrayed a mixture of terror and utter disdain at what the both of them thought was, frankly, too nosy, "even for a shrink", as Dean would tell him later over a greasy diner burger.

After 30 seconds or so, Sam shook his head, his eyes no longer focused on the woman, but on the floor.

"... Right. Well, thank you, boys. That's all I need from you. I'll talk to your father when he gets back." 

A few minutes of painful silence and then the scratching of a fountain pen against paper later, John burst in with a bag full of polystyrene take away boxes.

"You guys done?" he asked. 

"Yes, we're finished with the questioning."

"What is this, a murder mystery?" Dean muttered, and Sam smirked.

"Dean!" John exclaimed. "You do not talk about strangers that way. And wipe that smile off'a your face, Sam."

Dean kicked the nearest table leg in protest, whilst the psychiatrist walked over to John and began accounting her verdict on Sam in hushed tones. Dean caught the odd word, but not enough to make sense of it.

"... You shouldn't have anything to worry about. Classic trauma case. Should start talking by the time he's a teenager, or trying to." she was evidently speaking audibly now purposefully.

"Right. Thank you very much, Katherine. I'll send you a-"

"-don't worry about it" the reply came a little too quickly to not be suspicious. "I, er... I owe you one."

Sam nudged Dean and raised his eyebrows. 

"Why you gotta have so many questions, Sammy? I dunno! He prob'ly just... I dunno."

-

1997

"Well, I don't know how much longer this can go on for, Dean!" 

"He... He's fine, Dad. There's nothing wrong with him. 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it', right?" Dean mimicked his father. After all, it was him that had taught Dean that phrase.

"Don't twist this on me, Dean. Remember what that shrink said? He should've started... started trying a year ago!"

Dean was almost as tall as John now, and he walked closer to him, bow legs and all. He stood up straight and clenched his hands into fists, most likely squaring up to the man in front of him. "He's fine to me. He's more'n fine. He's got way more brains than I ever had! Just 'cause he don't say much, don't mean he needs another one of them shrinks. What do you want, Dad, a different kid?"

The bathroom door creaked open slightly, but neither of the hot-headed men noticed. Sam's head poked round the door. As soon as he had heard raised voices, he had stopped in his tracks of practising mouthing the only word he thought he'd need in front of the mirror. He had crept towards the door in an attempt to make as little noise as possible, and he thought he had screwed it all up because of that creak; yet when neither of them reacted, he felt safe to watch Dean, with his back to the bathroom, and his father, who wasn't looking anywhere but on Dean's furious face.

"Ya know what, Dean? Sometimes I do. I want a kid that'll friggin' talk to me! He barely even looks at me. He only ever even communicates with you."

Dean was at the point of full-on bellowing. "Well, if you stopped telling him he should've turned out different, maybe he'd actually try and tell you a thing or two!"

John slapped him.

 

Dean's chest heaved, and he ducked his head down. Gingerly, his fingertips brushed his face, and he flinched at the flash of pain it brought him. 

"Dean, I didn't mean to do tha- I didn't-"

"Go to hell, Dad."

-

Sam heard the front door slam and rushed to the next room over, the twin-room he and Dean had been sharing. Dean was perched on the edge of Sam's bed, his hand over his face.

Sam walked over and gestured for him to sit back, and Dean complied, his back coming to rest on the headboard. The younger boy shook his head in disapproval, and, as tenderly as was possible for him, closed his fingers around Dean's hand, pulling it off his face and onto his lap. All Dean could do was stare at Sam, mouth hung open, the reason being one that neither of them could quite put a finger on.

Maybe it was because Sam and Dean's hands hadn't touched since the time that shrink had come.

Sam held up a single finger, gesturing that he would return in a moment, and scurried off out of their bedroom. Dean's head fell back onto the wall and smiled a dopey, out-of-it smile. He was suddenly very, very tired, but the thought of getting close to Sam as Sam tended to his wound was enough to turn the corners of his mouth up, even just a bit.

It could have been 30 seconds or 30 minutes, Dean didn't know, but Sam came back with a wet cloth, with its edges dripping, which caused him to juggle it about from hand to hand. Dean could only assume that was due to its coldness, too. Sam clambered onto the bed. He looked like he was considering something. Shortly afterwards, he shimmied up Dean's legs, laid out in front of him in a manner that was surprisingly un-bow-legged. Sam stopped just before his brother's crotch, and he looked down at his own body, and back up to Dean's face - there was no complaint from Dean, however. Gently, Sam brought the cloth to Dean's face. When it came into contact with his cheek, Dean gasped a little and jumped.

Sam pressed a finger to Dean's lips this time. He wanted, more than anything, to let it linger there longer, for he often thought of what they would feel like to touch... but he couldn't. He knew he couldn't. So, he withdrew his free hand from his older brother's mouth and returned his concentration to the red part of Dean's cheek. Dean licked his lips after Sam's finger had left them.

When the water had fully transitioned from freezing to lukewarm, Sam removed the cloth from the skin it had been on, as if he was going to run it under the tap again. Dean grabbed his wrist before he could move.

"Sammy, it's okay. Thanks for taking care of me."

Sam smiled.

Dean looked at him for a moment, his face blank. Suddenly, his head was falling on Sam's shoulder, and he was holding onto his brother for dear life, and Sam felt his t shirt begin to grow slightly damp.

In any other situation, Dean would have felt too ashamed to cry in front of Sam, so he would wait until he was sure he was the only one left awake, and then he'd cry as silently as he could into his pillow. In fact, Sam had no idea why Dean was even allowing himself to cry in front of anyone here.

It wasn't like he was about to ask. 

After God know how long, Sam poked his brother on the back a couple of times to get his attention, and pushed their bodies apart so he could see his face.

"I love you" he mouthed.

Dean had fallen fast asleep.

-

2001

Dean couldn't believe Sam was leaving. How the hell was he gonna survive? Upon realising that Sam had to survive without Dean, he had learned ASL, or tried to, but like hell was anyone else there gonna know it, Dean silently concluded. 

John had left for a hunt without saying goodbye. He'd done it on purpose. Both Sam and Dean knew that, but neither of them were about to admit it.

"So, Stanford, eh, Sammy? You better not come back from there and arrest us for all our credit card scams" Dean punched his brother's arm playfully, and Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head. He was smiling, though.

"'S gonna be friggin' weird without you" Dean confessed. And it was. Still, Sam wanted... he didn't know what he wanted, but he was almost completely sure it wasn't where he was right then.

Sam pulled Dean into a hug. He was much bigger than Dean now, and it felt, for the first time since that night when he was fourteen, that he was the one having to look after his brother, instead of it being the other way round.

When the two of them pulled away from one another, Dean glanced away, holding back tears. Sam hadn't seen him cry since that time four years ago. It wasn't something he wanted to see again.

Sam tapped Dean on the shoulder, trying to get his attention."I love you" Sam tried to say, but all that came out was a croak. He was praying Dean could lip read something so exaggerated and simple.

Dean couldn't bring himself to even look, for fear that he would let a tear slip.

Sam's face fell when he realised Dean, yet again, wasn't going to- "What was that, Sammy? Sorry, I'm just tired" Dean rubbed his eyes to try and cover his emotional state up, but it only made his eyes more red.

Sam shook his head, as if to say "it doesn't matter."

-

2010

Sam was 27 when he spoke.

Dean was digging into a greasy bag of something that would surely give him diabetes on his bed in the motel, scrolling through sites on Sam's laptop that he would probably be forced to clean afterwards. Sam was situated on the sofa, the cheap wood on the coffee table completely hidden by the books and papers that lay across it. Sam had been mouthing this word over and over again ever since he was expected to speak, and he was mouthing it again, enjoying the feel of it on his tongue like he usually did at randomly appearing moments.

He decided it was time.

He'd been practising long enough and... if it was just another squeak or croak, then, well, he could play it off like normal. 

"Dean." Sam said it.

His name.

He said it, and it was so clumsy and desperate and loud, but he still said it. Dean dropped a piece of his food on the bed in shock. Sam would most likely have to clean that up later, too.

But for the first time, he didn't even care.

Dean's eyes widened so much Sam worried they would pop out of their sockets, like in the cartoons they used to watch when they were little and they were the only shows on the motel TVs.

"Dean." Sam spoke again, and this time it sounded more level, there wasn't a jump in pitch in the middle, and he smiled the smile of an innocent young boy. "Dean, Dean, Dean." he revelled in the feeling of it in his mouth even more now he could speak it aloud.

Dean stood up, stumbling off the bed, not taking his eyes off Sam, who was grinning and chanting his brother's name like it was a prayer. A prayer, but a prayer of joy, all the same.

Dean walked over to Sam, incredulous, eyes still blown wide, almost like he was high. He felt high. He really did.

Dean lowered himself onto the sofa and turned to face his brother. Instinctively, Sam shifted away, pushing his body up on his hands. Dean had sat so close to him. Dean grabbed Sam's arm before he could get far.

"It's okay, Sammy. It's okay." Dean reached an arm out and placed his hand on Sam's cheek. Slowly, ever so slowly, he rubbed his thumb back and forth across it. Time stood still. Dean stared at Sam's lips. He was staring so intently, in fact, that he failed to observe Sam was returning his gaze so desperately, his face contorted in a manner of mild distress. 

He wanted to say something. No. He wanted to do something.

Sam wanted to kiss Dean. Oh, God, there had never been a better time, and he noticed the way Dean was looking at him, shit, it made him crazy. It put him on edge. He wanted their lips to meet so badly, just like he'd imagined for so many years, glancing at Dean as his hands white-knuckled the wheel of the driver's seat in the Impala.

"D-Dean?" Dean snapped back to reality, and he shook his head as if to clear it. He looked right into Sam's eyes. 

"Yeah, Sammy?"

Sam bit his lip. He shook his head, a gesture Dean took to mean 'nothing'.

-

2016

Sam was dying. 

The details didn't matter. He just was. 

He couldn't even remember how he had come to be in this state, or why, or... he just remembered the one thing he had to say.

A lot of people, when they die, usually have some melodramatic, life-changing statement to make. Well, that was what Hollywood had taught Sam. His friends and family dying hadn't quite been the same. It had been real. Yet, Sam felt that he wasn't like his friends and family. He wasn't any ordinary, 'real' person.

What he had to say was far less over-dramatized, seeing as he'd been trying to get it across to Dean his whole life.

His vision focused and went blurry and repeated that process for quite a while. Whether he was zoned out or he could see perfectly, he was somewhere else. He could feel Dean holding him, feel Dean's gaze burning into him while he promised "I'll gank them", "they can't kill my brother", "you're gonna be just fine". Dean switched from aggressive to upset to inconsolable to aggressive again; still, Sam didn't feel as if he had the capacity to pay attention.

Sam took a deep breath in, filling his lungs full of air, not entirely conscious of the fact that this was one of the last times he would perform that simple act on earth. He needed all the breath he could get to expel what he wanted to say.

Abruptly, Dean stopped his frightened-beyond-belief rambling when Sam quietly asked, "Dean?"

"Sammy?" 

Sam hadn't had much to say in his life. Even if he could say anything other than his brother's name up until this point, he felt as if there wouldn't be anything he'd be dying (ironically, quite literally) to share with the world. There was only one thing he'd ever even considered worth expressing.

Sam swallowed, and for the first time since he didn't know when, he stared straight into Dean's eyes, grasping the fleeting moment of clear vision. "I love you."

Sam couldn't believe it had finally come out. It wasn't some weak lip-sync, it wasn't a croak... He had definitely heard it. And he knew Dean had, too.

 

What Dean responded with almost threw Sam off confessing altogether.

"Love you too, brother."

 

Normally, Dean wouldn't even have said this in a family kind of way. Sam figured Dean realised it was probably the only time he'd ever get to say it, even though the both of them knew it very well.

Sam was almost intimidated into not explaining how it really was due to Dean's comment, because he feared it would be unrequited - but it wasn't exactly as if he'd live to suffer the consequences... and what other opportunity would he have?

Sam spoke louder this time, as if to stress his point with more emphasis. "No, Dean. I love you."

This day was the first and last time he would say those 3 words, he was sure.

It was the last time Sam would say it, too. 

It. 

His name.

Conveniently, it was clearer than any other time he'd ever spoken. He would've been proud. He didn't feel anything strongly, however. Not even the panic based on what he'd said that would have naturally set in if he wasn't so hurt that there was no longer any pain.

Things felt like they were beginning to fade, and Sam was shocked at the similarity he felt to that character Rue he'd seen in the Hunger Games once, when it was on TV in the bunker. He cursed internally at his body and the universe's outrageously poor timing.

"Sam, I-" Dean's jaw was suspended in the air, as if he didn't know how to finish what he'd started.

Sam couldn't hear him any more.


End file.
